m0rl0ck wrote:Actually DL i think that the reason most treatment centers use a 12 step centric approach is just that it works. I dont think they would put their reputation on something that didnt.

The in-patient treatment program I went through leaned heavily on the 12 Step model, and the staff there frequently informed us that success rates for their program and programs around the country like it were about 3-4%. Would you charecterize that as something that "works"?

Do you have a reference to support your use of "most" here or evidence to support your claim that "it works"? The reason treatment centers that use 12 step models use them is very related to the fact that recovery is an industry, and they are part of the medical-industrial-complex. When profit is involved, reputation gets de-prioritized.

m0rl0ck wrote:You know i looked for a smart recovery meeting in this area to go check it out and there arent any near by.

m0rl0ck wrote:The only things i have learned from this thread is that dl has an irrational dislike of AA despite evidence that it saves lives, including testamonials in the thread itself and that DL disagrees with the accepted medical definition of alcoholism.

What exactly do you find irrational about it my alleged dislike of AA?

I never said I dislike AA. Neither you nor anyone else in this thread have provided evidence that AA saves lives at astatistically significant level. There is no accepted medical defintion of alcoholism. Rather, there is a dwindling contingency in medicine whom subscribe to one inarrow, dogmatic, antiquated "defintion" of alcoholism and addiction initially generated by the public relations campaigns of Benjamin Rush, the Temperance Movement, Dwight Anderson, Elwin Morton Jellinek, Bill Wilson, Bob Smith, Dr. William Silkworth (author of the chapter in the Big Book titled "A Doctor’s Opinion") and Sally Mann (a journalist who claimed to be the first woman who achieved sobriety through AA). See the excerpt from Gary Greenburg's introduction in his book The Noble Lie: When Scientists Give the Right Answers for the Wrong Reasons I posted earlier in this thread.

m0rl0ck wrote:AA probably saved my life and i know others who feel the same way.

You're probably not giving yourself enough credit.

m0rl0ck wrote:So dl let me ask you this, if there are no smart recovery meetings nearby, and someone who needs help reads this thread and because of your opinions, decides not to go to AA and ends up dead or harmed (when they otherwise might have been helped) , how would you feel?

In order to entertain this string of hypotheticals I'd have to do what folks in AA call "future tripping." And like I explained to Tilt above, while my actions may influence people, I'm neither responsible for nor can I control their perceptions, especially when their perceptions are based in greed, hate and delusion. This is similar to the Buddhist teaching that you're only responsible for your own karma. Furthermore, there's no necesary connection between not going to AA (for whatever reason) and dying from drug and alcohol abuse. In the highly unlikely event that the highly unlikely connections between the causal links in your creative srtring of hypotheticals were to be validated somehow (despite their not being falsifiable) my emotions would be a combination of samvega, metta, karuna, mudita, upekkha and anukampa. I'd also try to emulate the Buddha's repsonse to the news about the 500 monks who committed suicide when they misunderstood his teachings on the foulness of the body.Kindly,dL

Last edited by danieLion on Thu Sep 12, 2013 11:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Followup:(1) There's no necesary connection between duration and efficacy.(2) As pointed out earlier in this thread, CBT and REBT (the philosophies SMART Recovery leans heavily on) have been around since the 50's, and REBT's and CBT's principles were foreshadowed not only in Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius and other Stoic philosophers, but also in the teachings of the Buddha.(3) A Chronology of SMART RecoveryKindly,dL

"When you meditate, don't send your mind outside. Don't fasten onto any knowledge at all. Whatever knowledge you've gained from books or teachers, don't bring it in to complicate things. Cut away all preoccupations, and then as you meditate let all your knowledge come from what's going on in the mind. When the mind is quiet, you'll know it for yourself. But you have to keep meditating a lot. When the time comes for things to develop, they'll develop on their own. Whatever you know, have it come from your own mind.http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai ... eleft.html

Your qoutes do not represent what AA stands for, but only what some private people might have done.Every attendant gives what he likes.Every meeting is totally self sufficient and decides on it's very own, what to do with the collected money.

Your qoutes do not represent what AA stands for, but only what some private people might have done.Every attendant gives what he likes.Every meeting is totally self sufficient and decides on it's very own, what to do with the collected money.

Hi mirco,I presume by "quotes" you mean the research citations? If so, do you mean all the citiations or the just the one you duplicated? Also, I was not referring to what AA members do, but what AAWS Inc. does.Kindly,dL